Cassandra Behind Closed Doors. Linda Sorpreso

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      “Thank you guys, you bought too much,” Phillip said.

      I was next and I felt uneasy. I tried to ignore Phillip and his camera but it was hard. I kept staring at it from the corner of my eye as I got up and picked up Adam’s gift. I pulled at the collar of my top. I felt as if I was suffocating, being swallowed whole by the lens. I also felt cheap. My gift wasn’t anything special. I had bought Adam a Thomas the Tank Engine frame for ten dollars and a small toy car that I found at Spoils for two dollars. I couldn’t afford much. I had to rely on Mum who gave me five dollars a week if she had it and I also received payments from Social Security twice a year because I was a student and under sixteen. Even though I didn’t have a job, I felt guilty I couldn’t spoil him like they did.

      I gave Adam his gift and quickly sat down again, with my head down low. Lorissa opened the present. “Oh, look at this Adam, isn’t it nice?” she said. “Thanks Cassie.”

      “That’s okay,” I said. I really hoped they liked it. I went to Dandenong Plaza last week with Mum and as we walked past the store Fab Frames, I spotted the frame through the window. I immediately thought of Adam and was so excited; I bought it on the spot.

      Lorissa handed me the parcel she had bought for me. I felt the gift. It felt hard all over. Most probably books, well I hoped they were. I quickly opened it and discovered they were, though my excitement quickly washed away and turned into sadness. They were Goosebump books and I didn’t read them. I was hoping they were more R.L. Stine novels to add to my collection. Right author but just the wrong type. I had read a couple of the Goosebumps paperbacks and found them to be babyish.

      “Do you like them Cassie?” Lorissa asked. “Are those the ones you read?”

      “Yeah they are,” I lied, faking a smile as I tried to hide my disappointment. I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She did try after all and it wasn’t the books that made me sad, it was the realisation that the twelve-year gap between us really affected our relationship. She really didn’t know me and I didn’t know her.

      I put the books on my bed and returned into the lounge room. My sisters were preparing the tables. I grabbed the knives and forks from the kitchen and began placing them on each napkin. I could barely concentrate for the delicious odours of food. It was nearly six-thirty and I was starving.

      It had always surprised me to hear what my Aussie friends ate for Christmas dinner: roast, mashed potatoes and gravy. As usual, Mum had prepared a feast and there would be plenty of leftovers to last us for a week. She had cooked lasagne, ravioli in bolognese sauce, parmigiana, turkey, cutlets, a couple of chickens and the antipasto — a plate filled with salami, mortadella, ham, six types of cheeses, olives, stuffed artichokes and whatever else Mum could add. Then there was the contorno, meaning the side dishes like the three varieties of potatoes: roasted, boiled with oregano and mashed, fried rice, salads, peas with carrots, roasted vegetables, etcetera. The list of food went on and then afterwards, there was the assortment of fruits, nuts and cakes. That was the wog mentality — spending the whole day in the kitchen cooking and then the entire night cleaning up because they didn’t use plastic cutlery. I didn’t think the reason behind their way of thinking was trying to outdo one another or showing off. Mum usually said it was better to have more food than not enough, and I suppose I could understand her reasoning. Could you imagine an Italian family not having enough food to eat? They would probably freak out and eat one another.

      Italians were stereotyped as short, hairy, gold chains around their neck, their favourite movie had to be The Godfather and they had either a slice of pizza or chunk of bread in their hands. Oh and their diet included pasta every single day, either for lunch or dinner and perhaps even both.

      It was true — I only had one good shave from a dispos-able razor, maybe had an obsession with bread but I had never had pasta every single day — possibly three times in a week but never seven. Nor did I have pizza frequently and I had never even seen The Godfather movies. Though I used to watch this Italian TV show called Octopus on SBS with Mum and Dad every week, which was about the Mafia and I think I cried for about an hour when one of the characters was murdered.

      I remember being teased as a young child for having Nutella or smelly mortadella and salami in my sandwiches while the others had Vegemite. I tried having Vegemite once, just to fit in and I almost gagged as soon as I opened the jar. Now that was what you could call lethal, not a slice of smoked pork.

      I admit, Italians did have a love for food, but more than half of the world hadn’t really tried our best recipes. People hadn’t tried my Zia Manuela’s cannelloni, Zia Sarina’s curry or cotolette s, my mum’s bolognese sauce and supaglessi or my Nonna’s arancini. Arancini was the best food ever invented. Rice, combined with minced meat and peas, shaped into little balls, filled with mozzarella, lathered in the whites of an egg, then covered in breadcrumbs and fried in oil. It was heavenly, though a bitch to make. It took ages to cook because of our large family and one ball for each person wasn’t enough. Ten sounded just about right. I had always wanted my family to open up their own Italian restaurant, just to show what we really ate.

      I stepped into the kitchen and walked over to Mum who was taking the turkey out of the oven.

      “Mum, do you want to call Zia Sarina and see if they’ve left? I’m hungry!” I said.

      “I’m sure they’ll be here soon,” she said, as she took the turkey out of the oven and began slicing it into thin slices. I pinched a piece from the tray.

      “Cassandra!” Mum said.

      “What?” I asked, swallowing the delicious meat. “Don’t tell me that the juices will dry up if I have one?”

      “Don’t be smart,” Mum warned.

      I laughed. When Mum, Nonna and Dad were frying food in oil, particularly arancini, my sisters and I would start eating ones already cooked and they would scream at us every time. They had this crazy idea that if you ate the product while the rest were still frying, the oil would dry up. It made no sense and if the oil did thin, they would make a big deal out of it. They called us back into the kitchen, showed us the pan and yelled, “You see!” I wasn’t a chef or anything but, you would think the oil would have dried out because the hot plates were too hot, not because of some silly superstition.

      My parents and Nonna went overboard with these myths. I didn’t believe if your right palm itched, it meant you were going to receive money but if it was left, you gave money, however if it was your ear, someone was speaking badly about you. The legend about the walking under a ladder was just ridiculous and really just common sense. You wouldn’t walk underneath a ladder because it was dangerous — it could fall on you, not because it was a portal to the spiritual world and allowed the spirits out to roam the earth. I didn’t think when you sneezed your soul escaped your body, nor the myth about doing things in threes, like making a bed or setting the table because the youngest one dies. I had never seen on the news or read an article of a young person dying because three people set the table. Though I have to admit, I used this one to my advantage. I got out of making the bed hundreds of times. My mum and sister didn’t want to be responsible for my death.

      I believed in some superstitions, I knocked on wood with the rest of them to keep something bad I just said from coming true. I believed if you broke a mirror, it caused seven year’s bad luck, malocchio or if a black cat crossed your path, something bad would happen. Only because I had seen it first-hand. We went to an Italian dinner dance once and the café had closed, so I went with Zia Sarina, Abby and Tessa to grab some KFC. As we drove to the restaurant, a black cat ran across the road and when Zia Sarina opened the door to KFC, she fell СКАЧАТЬ